Hours before Rajya Sabha voting, slated to take place in the state Assembly complex on Tuesday for the lone vacant seat in Himachal Pradesh, ruling Congress has closed its ranks and kept a hawk eye on its 40 MLAs, apart from efforts to rope in three independents.
The reasons for this effort is clear –a fear of cross-voting after the BJP having fielded former Congress Minister and ex-Virbhadra Singh loyalist Harsh Mahajan, now in the BJP, as its candidate. Congress side as the party has 40 MLAs in the 68 member House against 25 from the BJP, Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu is not taking any risk.
The Congress has fielded noted Supreme Court lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi as its candidate. The party high command has rushed former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel to Shimla to ensure that all the party MLAs cast their votes in favour of the party. The Congress incharge for Himachal Pradesh Rajiv Shukla is also managing the flock. The party has issued a whip to the MLAs to remain present at the time of voting even as the state Assembly was also in the session. The party has planned to host a breakfast meeting for the Congress MLAs at the official residence of the chief minister on Tuesday morning and thereafter drive to the state Assembly complex together. Abhishek Manu Singhvi is also hosting a dinner meeting with MLAs at a luxury hotel on Monday night.
Yet, the party has major concerns about two defiant party MLAs – Sudhir Sharma, a former minister and Rajendra Rana, a two-time MLA,whose fame to his name is about defeating former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal in 2017. Both were not inducted in the Cabinet by CM Sukhu. The MLAs have taken it to social media to target their own government on different issues and also questioning the style of governance, non-implementation of poll guarantees and promoting “favourites”, both elected MLAs and non-MLAs given Cabinet ranks.
Meanwhile, the BJP looked in upbeat mood with former Chief Minister Jairam Thakur racking-up the issue of telephone tapping and surveillance on the BJP MLAs. “Constant pressure is being put on MLAs by the government, especially the Chief Minister and the Central leaders of the Congress Party and even whip has been issued to manipulate the voting process”, he said.